OK, I now have close to $150 of gift certificates/returnable merchandise for Best Buy. I’m thinking that that’s close enough to the cost of a Playstation 2 for me to foot the difference and get one as soon as they are available.
My first question is when will they be available again? My first choice to buy it from is Best Buy, but if their available from another source, I could probably sell my gift certificates to my friends, and go there. I am only considering purchasing my system directly from a retailer. I’m not going to buy it through ebay or the paper or anything, even if its for face value.
My second question is are there any reasons not to buy one right away (assuming I can find one)? I expect that the price will remain at $300 for a while, but if it was going to drop within a few months, I’d probably wait. I remember that the first wave of original Playstations were slightly different from the second wave, is something similar to this going to happen with PS2? Will a version of PS2 with some bugs worked out be available within a year or so? Are there any other reasons to wait on making this purchase?
Hey, my best friend works in Tokyo at Sony, more specifically SCEI which is the Playstation division. He’s vising and is coming over on Thursday so I can ask him any detailed questions you like. He got a Japanese model of PS2 right when they first came out, and it’s his job to know this stuff. And I get to hear most of the inside story.
First of all, chip production for the PS2 is below projections, so there are shortages of chips and consequently a shortage of PS2 units. Demand is increasing while supply hasn’t improved. If you order a PS2 today, nobody can tell when your unit will arrive.
I personally would not buy a PS2 right now. I don’t expect any superior model to come out from another company (i.e. nintendo, sega, etc) so the Playstations are pretty much the market leader. But I’ve been hearing complaints from PS2 users.
First of all, the programmers writing games don’t seem to understand the high-end graphics programming of the PS2. So most of the games don’t use the full potential of the PS2 chip, and end up looking just like PS1 games. Secondly, some people have been complaining that the DVD software in the US versions is inferior to the Japanese version. Apparently the US PS2 decoder kinda sucks, it has artifacts and decoding/display glitches that don’t appear on the Japanese PS2. It appears that the US system software is different.
I believe that Sony will address these problems eventually, but they have their hands full just delivering the machines, without trying to improve their function. With time, programmers will figure out how to produce better PS2 programs, and Sony will fix the DVD playback. I don’t know how long that will be. For now, the PS2 is a decent (but not great) DVD player and plays PS1 disks and PS2 software (but the PS2 games aren’t much better than the PS1 games). If you want to buy it now, knowing its flaws, as well as its potential, then go for it. Hell, by the time you manage to get ahold of one, these problems might already be solved.
BTW, beware of online PS2 sales. This item has been the biggest fraud bait of the season. They’ll take your money and run.
Should be plenty of them in the ads. But you might also call the stores, there is no way that we can tell when the Best Buy store you are talking about gets them. I think tons of them are being returned today because people bought a lot of them for reselling & couldnt sell for a big profit so they return them to the store this week.
October 2001: The XBox should come out, along with Nintendo’s Cube. That XBox sucker looks impressive. That’s where my money is going to go, no question about it.
As far as different versions, over 9 versions of the first Playstation came out. All of the boasting more hardware upgrades, more ram, efficiency, etc… so the longer you wait…
XBox (Microsoft) and the Gamecube (Nintendo) will both boast at least twice the graphics resolution as the PS2. They will be released late 2001.
All the major 3rd party manufacturers have signed on for the Xbox, (except Squaresoft, but they will be following soon), and many have exclusively ditched the PS2 in favor the Xbox, simply because programming for the XBox is extremely easy compared to the PS2 as the the Xbox uses Direct X (I think).
Of course, as a side note, the XBOX has up the processor to an 800 Megahertz PIII, and after doing so, blows the PS2 out of the water in every category. If you do visit this link, make sure to pay special attention to the polygon count, which is what makes the graphics so good in the first place…
My money is going to the XBox as well. Actually mine has already gone… ;]
The only version to version changes I’ve ever heard of were eliminating some ports, making it harder to play copied games, changing the layout so production is cheaper, adding the lightshow program, and making the system better at getting rid of heat.
Other than possible overheating issues, the earliest Playstations perform just as well as the latest models. Not once have I ever seen a mention of RAM upgrades or anything else that would improve performance.
After the SCPH-3000 (Rev B), Sony started using cheaper ram, not more. Somehow my mind translated the ‘cheaper’ into ‘more’.
I guess you’d think that they might be nice and put more ram inside the machine since they weren’t paying as much for it anymore, but I guess not.
Still though, I swear that I heard somewhere after the initial batch of the machine, 4 additional megs were stuck in there somewhere. Who knows. Not a big deal I guess.
There’s no reason to put more ram into the machine, since the games need to play on the old machines, and thus can’t make use of the new ram. I could be wrong though.
As far as whether you should buy it. I’d wait until there were a few games you saw that you wanted. Right now, the PS2 doesn’t have the gaming library that I require of a system, and like was said, the quality of the games is just so-so until developers start using the full capabilities of the hardware. I’ll buy it after a few games come out that I want. At that time, I’m expecting the price to drop to $200 to compete with the Dreamcast (and the upcoming X-box and GameCube) anyway. I’ve got plenty of playstation games to tide me over until then. I don’t understand how people will pay $600 for it when they can get it for $200 in a few months. Wackos…
Sure, I can buy it then. Oh, a preorder this time IN the meantime, I can play with my PSX2. Remember, though, right now the PSX2 Can do these things, which I don’t think the Xbox can do:
If additional memory was added for the video processor, I think there would be a performance increase that would outweight the cost of the additional memory. Many of the PC games currently available require only 4 or 8 MB of video memory for the game to work. The more video memory available, the better the games look. Also, many of these games require 64 MB of RAM, for example, but recommend at least 128 for optimal performance. Adding RAM to the PSX would most likely increase its performance enough to outweigh the cost.
However, depending on the configuration of the system board used for the PSX, there may not be additional slots for memory, which is a possible reason why they decided to not add memory. Chas, can you ask your friend about this too?
Whenever you change the system’s abilities, you fragment the market. Upgrading the 33mhz processor and 2 megs of RAM would have definitely improved performance. However, not everyone would buy the new upgrade. So, some people couldn’t buy the “upgraded” games and the rest would only buy the “upgraded” games because they had better graphics/gameplay.
The PSX can get such good graphics out of 33mhz because programmers really know the hardware. If they had to write games to work on a wide variety of systems, ala PCs, the games probably wouldn’t be nearlys as good at pumping every ounce of performance out of the system.
The parallel port, where the Gameshark plugs in, would be used for plug-in RAM upgrades. Unfortunately, it’s too slow to really be useful.
What I was saying is that a game that makes use of new hardware could not be played on the old hardware. Let’s say there’s a playstation game that makes use of extra memory in a 9001 console (also assuming that extra memory exists). That game can then NOT be played on the original version of the console (1001) since the extra memory needed by the game would not be available on that older model. Thus there would be no reason for sony to add more memory, if it ended up in them having to say “This game only works on NEWER playstation consoles”.
Well, I own virtually every video game system made/for sale so I will give my input here.
There is no doubt that a PS2 is a more capable polygon pusher than a Dreamcast, and quite possibly the Gamecube. If you can buy one, go for it. If the price drops (next xmas season at the earliest) I don’t think it would be enough to be worthwhile to wait…more than likely the $50 mark.
Buy now and play now. If you wait for the next best thing, you will ALWAYS be waiting since there is always something better on the horizon. The PS2 is a brute and has an very bright future for gaming.
Every other machine on the market today has a very real risk of being abandoned within a year or so. Even the Dreamcast is getting dropped by some retailers now (which is a pity)
I got it tax free because ebworld.com didn’t charge sales tax & only $6.50 shipping for three items, which they have to ship at various times as they come in. Including FFXI, which for some reason I ordered with it in August & is not due until Sept 2001
Grrr… If Gates and company conquer the video game world too, I will be one pissed off puppy. Is there nothing that they will keep their evil mitts off??
The XBox is what is known to marketing people as a “knocker.” It is a vaporware product that is designed to confuse people as to whether they should buy the other company’s product NOW, or wait until the other “better” product ships. I guarantee the XBox, if it EVER ships, will be delayed as long as possible. But if they delay it TOO long, it will lose its utility as a knocker, people will stop waiting and just buy the existing product.
The classic example of this was the IBM PCjr. The PCjr’s sole function was to stop people from buying AppleII models, with the hopes that people would wait and buy a “real” computer from a “real” computer company like IBM. And it served its function quite well. IBM made continuous announcements about how great the PCjr would be, and unsurprisingly, every time Apple announced new products, IBM leaked new info about their development. Many people decided to postpone buying an Apple. Then the PCjr shipped, people saw what a pile of crap it was, and Apple sales resumed their growth. IBM didn’t care if it lost millions of bucks on the PCjr, as long as it did damage to Apple.
And that’s what the XBox is for. It will remain vaporware as long as it cuts into Sony’s sales. Then they’ll be forced to release it, and people will see what a piece of crap it is.
“And that’s what the XBox is for. It will remain vaporware as long as it cuts into Sony’s sales. Then
they’ll be forced to release it, and people will see what a piece of crap it is.”
I don’t understand why Microsoft would make something like that because people could just play the microsoft games on their microsoft operating system computer right now.What’s up with this idea? Maybe its as simple as yousaid, just a distraction? 800mhz in a year won’t be nothing.
QuantumGrid, I hope you’re happy. Now you’ve convinced me that I need to buy 2 new consoles this/next year. Okay, I can do this… This year’s tax return check is for the PS2, and then next year’s is for the box…
Seriously, though. I had no interest before I read through the link that you kindly posted. Thank you for opening my eyes! The potential is incredible! I hope that they can use it well.
IN the meantime, I can play with my PSX2. Remember, though, right now the PSX2 Can do these things, which I don’t think the Xbox can do: